Tarnished Scales and a Pure Heart
by My Beautiful Ending
Summary: In the light of the moon, Peter Pan goes to Mermaid Lagoon to try to figure things out. A lone mermaid cryptically helps.


**Companion piece to "Waiting to See" ****but if you haven't read it, you don't have to.**

**Tarnished Scales and a Pure Heart**

The moon was beginning to wane. He had been sitting there for a long time.

There was no sound in the lagoon except for the slowly lapping waters on the rocks. He had stopped playing his pipe a while ago. Fog and shadow served to obscure her well, since she was of the same coloring. There were no nets, no hidden pirates laying in wait for her kind, no tricks that she could see. But there wouldn't be. He was the boy.

And the night was cold, lending a chill even to the sea where she swam. She decided to take pity on him and see what he wanted.

With only a quiet swish and murmur of seawater, she pulled herself up onto her favorite sunning rock, which was currently lit with moonlight. Lying on her stomach, she let her elbow help prop her up as she asked, "It's an awfully cold night to be sitting in mermaid lagoon, boy. What do you want?"

Of course, she knew who he was. Everyone knew. He was the special boy.

His gaze locked onto her from his position on the rocky crag, and she knew how she appeared. Her wet hair would probably appear black, but it carried a hint of a promise of another color if it was dry. Of course, she had never been dry in her life, so she wouldn't know what it was. Her skin carried a green hint, her scales were dark and blue-green, and her fingers were webbed together. He couldn't see her sharp teeth.

"I was thinking that I might get some answers," he said, scooting to the edge of the rocks.

"Answers require questions," she said, smirking.

"Why…" he struggled for words. "Am I… -do they…" Finally, he glared out of frustration. "Aren't you supposed to know what I want to know already?"

She smiled, showing all of her very sharp teeth. "Maybe I do. Maybe I just want to hear you say it." She let him stew for a while.

"Will I end up alone?" he asked. "Will everyone leave eventually and I'll be stuck here, unable to age?"

She slipped off of her rock and down into the cold waters, swimming languidly up to him. Letting her hands rest on the rock, she said, "That's not what you're asking."

"You're not helpful at all," he snapped, floating up a few feet, as if she might try to haul him into the water bodily. She fought the urge to roll her eyes.

"They don't belong here," she said, smiling up at him with all her teeth.

His feet hit the rock with a THUMP and he stared at her.

"Those Darling children," she elaborated. "They don't belong here, and they know it. But why don't you?"

"Maybe I do," he whispered, as the moon dipped behind a cloud.

He missed her. That Wendy. But he'd see her again. She wasn't going to tell him that, though. He had to figure out where his place was first.

"But _you_ do," she said quietly, staring at him intently.

"I what?" he asked.

"You belong here," she said. "Why would you ever want to go back to that place, with the noise and the dirt and the chaos…" she could see it as she looked at him, the horses and stone streets factories and not a tree or lake in sight. London Town.

"How do you know?" the boy asked, crouching down.

"I See it," she said, smiling again. "You belong here like the Indians do, like my people and the Fairies do… even some of the pirates," she said, as her tone took on a scathing tone. "Though if you tell them so I will pull you under myself."

He smiled then, a flash of white teeth and glowing eyes. "I won't," he said. "Don't like pirates, do you?"

She cocked her head to the side. There were some fairly nice singers aboard that pirate ship. Still… "I do not like nets," she clarified, bending her tail where humans would normally have knees, but for her, it was just one of the many joints in her tail. The large fan at the end of her scaly tale waved into view above the water, and the surprise and shock in his face told her he was taking note of the holes and ragged flesh between the ribbed portions of her tail. She let her tail slip back into the water. "Which they use when they decide they want to catch me," she continued. "So… no. I do not like pirates when they are trying to catch me."

"I'm sorry," the boy said.

She could tell that he was sincere, but there was no word for 'sorry' in her native tongue, so she did not know how to respond.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

"No," she said. The flesh would grow back, slowly but surely.

"It's really pretty –beautiful," he corrected himself. "You're beautiful."

She was not unaccustomed to the word or sentiment –she received it often, from the jealous tongues of her sisters, the respectfully fearful words of the braves who prudently steered clear of her kind, and the rude, lewd mouths of the pirates with their nets.

But this boy simply said the words like they were facts, and he believed them.

And for the first time, she believed them, too. For that, she would tell him.

"You are innocent," she said. "A boy with a boy's heart. Men who come here and do not age still grow, but they grow worse. You will never grow up. Keep hold of your heart and do not let the goodness leave you, boy."

"My name's Peter," he said. "What's yours?"

"Neried," she said quietly.

"Neried… shall I truly never grow up?" he asked.

She could tell him what the Fairies had done to him was permanent, and this was the cost. Even if he left their world, he would stay a boy. She could explain why, in a technical way, or elaborate on what she Saw.

She didn't.

She merely said, "All children grow up. Except one. I like you, Peter. Come again."

She disappeared beneath the water as the first light of dawn broke the horizon.


End file.
